Being polite costs nothing

- or so we are told.

I was in the bakery yesterday. The expectation in there is that you will be served in the order you enter the shop. People do not queue as such but you know who is ahead of you and who is behind you.

I am short but the shop assistant had seen me. I am a regular customer there as they sell the type of seed loaf I like. My turn to be served was about to come up when someone moved in front of me.

"There is someone else next..." the assistant started to say.

"I am next. I want..." came the belligerent response. Other customers looked. 

"Is there anything else?" the assistant asked when she had handed over the bread.

"No." 

None of us said anything and the rude individual got away with it. She was served. She did not say "thank you" simply tapped her card and left. 

The assistant started to apologise so I said, "No, she is the one who should apologise."

There were murmurs of agreement around me. Someone mentioned a shop in another country where someone had tried something similar. The problem was they tried it on the owner who then refused to serve them at all.  I doubt a mere shop assistant would get away with that here.

At this time of the year, at the time the Christmas decorations are up and the shop assistants are wearing their Christmas t-shirts instead of the usual shirts, I am even more conscious of the need to be polite. I will tell the younger ones wearing red t-shirts with kangaroos in Santa hats that it is "fun t-shirt" or the older one that the elf-hat "really suits" them. It is done in fun. They know it and we can smile at each other. I am planning on slipping a tiny little box with a single chocolate inside it to the person who delivers the mail and giving the girl who works at the phone repair booth the same. They have gone out of their way to help this year. Yes, they are paid to do their job but I want to be sure they are thanked again. I want to be polite and it really does not cost anything. I have had more than that in return.

Perhaps the very rude person in the bakery was just having a bad day but I suspect it was more than that.